The Unfinished Portrait
by lunepanique
Summary: A short story retelling and further exploring Edgar Allan Poe's "The Oval Portrait," written for my Comparative Literature class. Knowledge of the original story is needed to understand but it is short and can be found on Google by public domain.


The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; —on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

~ Matthew Arnold

The white chalk cliffs shone with pale moonlight as I watched them dwindle into the distance from the deck of our vessel. My valet and I had departed on the ferry from Dover just after midnight for a journey of some months on the Continent. The waves lapped at the belly of the steamship and a strong wind whipped at the hem of my long coat as I stood on deck. I took one last glance at the now minuscule shore of England, like a stack of sun-bleached bones reaching for the heavens. Turning my back I looked toward the bow and the impenetrable darkness before it. No amount of moonlight could completely disperse that gloom. But what lay ahead seemed preferable to what I was leaving behind.

I am a writer by trade and recently I found myself in the good graces of the masses. My novels became the most popular my publisher had ever printed. I daresay, the public would treat you with scorn if you had not read Mr. R-----'s latest jewel of literature. I became quite the unwilling celebrity. Those among fashionable society were nearly begging to entertain me, or rather have the bragging rights of doing so. At the first I was amused by the sudden obsequious following my work had produced, and I obliged my callers by attending their parties. I entertained myself in observing the frivolity of constant balls, the new dresses of the ladies, the hunting parties of the gentlemen, and the scandal circulated among the gossipmongers. I assumed my run on the circuit of the fashionable world would come to an end well before my next novel had even made it to the presses. But alas, my demand seemed to increase. Indeed, I am a writer of the Gothic, which perhaps gives fuel to the rabidity and foolishness of some readers. But I enjoy my trade and try to put an ounce of redeeming sensibility for anything overly melodramatic. What made me think Paris or Rome would be any different than the upper-crust of London is beyond me. But it was not merely a desire to escape, rather a search for inspiration, for new material. After so long, it is hard to come by among the insipid company of the landed gentry, migrating between town and country-house with the change of the seasons, like a flock of twittering sparrows. It was enough to drive one mad.

Presently, my valet Pedro arrived on deck, pulling me from my reverie. He approached to tell me of the ship's progress. "The currents on the strait are with us, sir," he said. "If they remain we should land in Calais in four hours."

With this knowledge I dismissed the man and, thanking him, retreated from the increasing wind to rest until we disembarked.

* * *

In the weak light of dawn we landed at Calais. Fog crawled ashore, making the surroundings a greyscale blur, but the sound of a nautical bell attached to a mast somewhere nearby announced the steadily rolling waves beneath the dock. Pedro directed our luggage to the train depot to which we soon followed. We were shortly seated alone in a compartment, trundling along the rails to Paris.

We spent several glorious weeks in Paris: on the Montemartre hill with the artists, by the River Seine in the shadow of the cathedral. But our final destination was Florence, still several days journey away. We embarked on a final train to Dijon, after which we would have to take a diligence stagecoach for the remainder of the route. A diligence, pulled by a team of six horses, would take us across the pockmarked mountain roads of the French and Italian countrysides in about a week.

Despite the discomfort of riding for so long each day, traveling by coach is my favorite part of any journey. You can never imagine the mysteries you may uncover, the characters you may meet, when forced into small quarters for long stretches of time with complete strangers, with nothing else to pass the time but talk. On trains people often have private compartments, but on the road they can't avoid mingling with each other. For the first half of the journey the main subject of my character study was a rotund Frenchman called Henri Moreau, whose source of amusement for me was his dumbfounded reaction upon meeting an Englishman who spoke fluent French. The first day we met he spent most of his time staring at me with a look that clearly said, Quoi? Henri's absurdities entertained me for awhile, until he bade me au revoir at the last stage stop before crossing the border to Italy. He dared not leave his beloved France.

* * *

Pedro and I were the sole passengers for several stages until a most peculiar man joined our party at Milan. He was a swarthy fellow, not exceptionally tall, with rather long dark hair that fell in waves about his lean face. Despite his gaunt appearance he was quite handsome. His most striking features were his eyes. They themselves weren't extraordinary, a simple amber-brown in color, but held within them was an excited gaze, almost crazed, as if something were happening behind them that the world could never comprehend. He introduced himself as a painter returning to his studio in Florence. I was drawn to him, almost hypnotically; perhaps it was the brotherhood felt between artists of one trade or another. He seemed to seek my company as well, for when we finally arrive in the city he offered to give me a tour of his studio.

Pedro, who was standing at my side, said quietly but firmly, "Begging your pardon, sir, but I don't think you should go. There's something not quite right about that one," nodding vaguely at the painter, who was engaged in directing his luggage to his apartments.

"Nonsense," I declared. "All artists have their peculiarities."

"Well, his are more alarming than charming..." my valet muttered.

I raised an eyebrow but gave no reply to my valet's remark. I couldn't miss the chance to get to know such a fascinating and bewildering man.

* * *

The painter became my main companion during my stay in Florence. He was not often cheerful but he never drove me away. Sometimes a shadow would pass across his face, and in these moments of quiet intensity I was almost fearful. But I never took these moments personally, I attributed it to an artists eccentricities. He would utter generalizations but in all the time I was in his company he never divulged a single detail about about his past. He was distant and mysterious. By my nature as a writer I wanted to know more. And that was the spark of inspiration that I had been looking for all along. During my evenings at the hotel I began scribbling a tale of the painter--a demonized version of him, of course, given my Gothic tendencies--about a beautiful reason to be tight-lipped about his past...

_She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hours when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art..._

Drawing the life out of an illusional bride with the husband's own brush strokes. A tragic horror sure to satisfy my rabid readers.

* * *

As my stay in Florence was drawing to an end, I decided to commission the painter for a portrait, as a souvenir of the inspiration he provided me. There was no question about his skill, he was indeed one of the most realistic portrait painters I had ever seen. The painter agreed to my request without even mentioning payment, which I was more than willing to provide. I was invited into the studio and seated behind a canvas, where I proceeded to sit for over five hours. As the hours passed, the painter stared more and more intently back and forth between the canvas and my own features. Under his scrutinizing gaze I felt uncomfortable, I could see the intensity burning in his eyes. I began to grow weary, more so than I should after merely sitting for five hours.

Tentatively I asked, "How much longer must we go on for today?"

"As long as it must," the painter answered brusquely.

"Really, I must insist that we stop for today. I will call upon you tomorrow morning to finish." Standing without waiting for a reply, I rushed out of the studio. I assumed I simply needed some rest and, while drawing the curtains in the hotel room, told Pedro not to disturb me until the morning.

* * *

I rose to sunlight streaming through a chink in the curtain, illuminating the dust motes floating lazily towards the ceiling. I felt much improved from the previous day's strange exhaustion, but a disturbing thought occurred to me as Pedro retrieved my clothing from it's trunk. My thoughts rushed to the story I had written about the painter, how his young bride's life drained away with each stroke that brought the painting to life. It couldn't actually happen... I imagined that story. I should know it couldn't happen. I tried to shake the notion from my mind and shrugged into the frock coat my valet held up. I decided to take Pedro with me to the painter's studio that day, just in case.

* * *

The painter surprisingly kept no servants, not even a valet, so I let myself into the studio. I left Pedro in the antechamber, with the instruction only to enter if I called. There I found the painter already sitting before the canvas, as if he hadn't moved from the previous day. The intensity was still burning in his eyes as I sat once more in the chair behind the canvas. It was then I felt the crippling, numbing fatigue creep into my bones, and fear tugged at the back of my mind.

"I continued working on it after you left," said the painter bluntly, vaguely gesturing toward the canvas.

"From memory?" I asked, surprised. And with that I asked quietly, "You mean you didn't sleep at all?"

The painter did not reply, but got up from his chair and walked to a wall that held several levels of shelves. Each shelf was haphazardly lined with glass vials containing powders and minerals of every color and consistency, some were labeled, some were not. The painter skimmed his hand along a shelf until he reached the vial he needed. This one was labeled in a scrawling hand: "Paris Green." He held up a glass of roughly ground, violently green powder. I knew as soon as I saw the label that this paint was made of arsenic.

"Now it's time," drawled the painter, "for the most important part. The eyes," he added with emphasis. "They're what gives the spark, the life. And you've got such lovely green ones, I get to use a very special paint." He took a palette knife and mixed the powder into an olive green paste on the palette. The knife flashed back and forth, sharpened to a razor edge by extensive use, as the painter viciously ground at the power. He was lost now, lost in his work and manic at the beauty of it.

Every fiber of my being warned me not to approach him but I had to confirm it with my own eyes. I still had one glimpse of hope, I had to make sure that the horror I had written wasn't a reality. I rotated the canvas on its easel toward me and saw my doppelgänger staring back at me. It was an exact copy of myself, with the blood stolen from my now pale face painted on the rosy cheeks of the imitation. The only remain difference were the eyes. The imitator had only a pale grey base coat, and not the deep poison green that the painter was now absorbed in creating.

And then I saw it. While staring at the cold eyes before me, they blinked. They actually blinked. I recoiled in horror, nearly throwing the easel onto its side. In less than a second I had decided; I didn't know what else to do. I reached over to the painter's palette, swiped a handful of paint off the thin wooden board, and slashed it across the mirror image of my face, ruining its cold cruel eyes forever.

That certainly woke the painter from his reverie. The shadow crossed his face again and he flew into a rage, screaming, "What have you done!? You would have been a masterpiece! A companion to my poor lonely bride!"

I couldn't believe what he was saying. It was the absolute confirmation that what I had written about this madman was, beyond all comprehension, true.

The painter then advanced toward me with the most savage look in his eyes, as if a demon had possessed him. At last I called for Pedro, but it was too late. The painter held the poisoned palette knife aloft and brought it down with the full force of his weight into my side. Patches of deep red obscured my vision for a moment as I stumbled to the ground. Pedro burst into the room, took a moment to register the scene, and made to wrench the palette knife from the painter's hand. I crawled to lean against a wall, and from that vantage point watched my valet wrestle with the madman. Pedro managed to wrest the knife from the painter's hand with so much force that it threw the painter backward. He slammed into the shelves of glass vials, where he crumple to the floor, unconscious, with shards of glass and a rainbow of colored powders showering down on him.

I looked down at the bizarre combination of red blood and green poison oozing out of the wound in my side. "We've got to get out of here," I said as unwaveringly as possible, using the wall to struggle to my feet.

"We've got to get you to a doctor," replied Pedro, coming to support me as I walked.

"No," I coughed. I nodded toward the crumpled body of the painter, "That madman is a local. He knows all the physicians here and could come after us, knowing that's where we'd go. Even the authorities. Everyone seems oblivious to his madness, as I was. You were right about him, Pedro--" and the sentence disappeared into a coughing fit.

"That's enough, sir," said my valet. "Let's get you out of this place."

* * *

Within twenty minutes of the attack, Pedro had managed to obtain a closed carriage led by a single horse. I waited inside it with my head back, eyes closed, holding a temporary bandage to my wound. I soon felt the lurch of the carriage as Pedro climbed into the driver's seat and urged the horse into a canter, out of the city and its surrounding villages. As the carriage rumbled I slipped into a fitful sleep.

* * *

I don't know how long we drove, but the sun had set and Pedro had lit the carriage's lanterns by the time I came to. In the last of the light all I could see were patchwork fields of mustard plants in full yellow bloom and rows of bony grape vines, and then a dense shadow in the distance. That seemed to be where Pedro was heading. The shadow was a chateau, built on top of one of the rolling hills Tuscany is renowned for. Even from a distance one could tell it was not occupied, so Pedro insisted on forcing entry, rather than let me spend the night in the open air. The building was in a grand state of disrepair, richly decorated, yet tattered and antique. We settled ourselves in the tallest tower room, where Pedro set a pallet at the foot of the curtained four-post bed I was ensconced in and promptly fell asleep. I, on the other hand, was at the whim of delirium. I picked up the one thing that had been in the room other than furnishings, one single book. I intended to read, whatever it was, to try and ease my feverish mind. But it was a book on the paintings hanging about the disorienting room, of all things. I'd had enough of paintings to last me a lifetime, but it was the only thing I could do to not give in to hallucinations. I read devoutly and the hours flew graciously by.

Then, in the passing light of the candelabra, I saw it and I knew instantly. It was her. I hurriedly closed my eyes, as if to block her out, but I'd been through too much of her story not to recognize her. It was the painter's lonely bride, gazing out from her shadowed corner. I didn't read her chapter of the book, I already knew what happened. I hobbled out of bed and over to the portrait. The lonely bride stared right at me, and I knew she was there. Her soul, her mind, her spirit was in the painting. She was like a ghost trapped within the confines of the frame. And I shed a tear for her, because I would soon be going the way she could not, into eternity. I slumped to the ground against a dark velvet armchair and stared up at the girl just ripening into womanhood.

I could see her now, dancing about the room in a white muslin gown, waving a shawl in the air like a flag. Lovely and full of joy, frolicking like a young fawn. The poison whispered in my ear, sending her lithe form across every corner of the chamber, its lethal grasp pushing me to delirium.

I looked back up at the oval frame, the vignetting of the portrait hedging her in. But she had moved. She now leaned against the frame itself, as if to invite me in. I was so close to joining her. But I was to move on, and she was to remain forever imprisoned behind a cold cruel frame.

* * *

Pale morning light snuck between the slats of the tower's shuttered windows. Pedro stirred gently on his pallet and then, jerking awake, remembered where he was.

"Sir?" he asked, looking behind the heavy black curtains of the four-post bed. But his master was not there. Getting up, he looked around and saw an uneven shape slumped against the armchair in the corner. Pedro stood over the body of his master, and gently closed the green eyes that had been sightlessly gazing at the oval portrait.

Bite after bite

I'll be the temptress of poison

Your silken seducer

Let me carry you to wasteland

I swear it won't hurt

~ Unknown


End file.
